@PaulMode7

Paul Taylor

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What/Who are your biggest influences when it comes to music? Do you get inspiration from movies, video games and art as well?

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Paul Taylor
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Boards of Canada, Plaid, Vangelis, BB King, Gareth Emery, Ben Gold, DJ Gammer, Jesper Kyd, Bit Shifter, Monodeer, Deadmau5 and also I listen to a fair amount of just random radio-friendly pop music when I'm doing boring tasks or driving!
Inspiration from other media...not really, if I'm being honest. I actually used to think about that kind of thing a lot more when I was younger - particularly when I was at university - but these days it's more of a practical thing for me. I don't really apply a lot of theory to what I'm doing and I think other types of art are better at having a theoretical influence on you. That might change in the future though!

Latest answers from Paul Taylor

The components that make up FS and FE are simple, yet the way they all combine together results in a complex interplay that often gets ignored in reviews and discussion due to the "blind" nature of the games. How do you decide what stays in the system and what gets dropped?

That's really a design question for Ian, but it's always just a combination of a core design and iteration. Ian has a very clear idea of where he wants the game to go from the start, in terms of the dynamics of it and also the feeling he wants to get from the gameplay. He'll then implement a basic system and play the game against Robin, our tester and Level Designer. They'll discuss it and he'll make changes. After that, he'll broaden it out to playing in a wider group and take more feedback then usually add things / pare back until he's happy that his original idea has been fulfilled. It's a process that's very specific to him and it seems to work!

This may sound completely crazy, but did you every consider adding a melee component to Frozen Synapse? Like when two soldiers are close to each other the game would shift to a Toribash-style fight? I think that would be awesome

Hahah that is awesome! I think there was a little bit of discussion about further micro mechanics but we just felt that would over-complicate the game.

All time favourite games?

For me, Deus Ex, Streets of Rage 2, Starcraft 2, Wing Commander and Privateer; Ian would probably say Thief and Tribes 2

Which tools do you guys use for development? How long did FS take to make from conception to final product?

It took around 4 years. We used the Torque 2D game engine, which is C++ -based. At the moment we still use Torque and our artists generally work in Blender.

How many Starcraft references will be thrown into the titles of your upcoming ensnare album? Also what race do you play?

Uhh...quite a few! I play Terran very badly in Gold League.

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